Night bombers interception in Western Europe in 1944

"Bernardz" wrote in message
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A fighter is much smaller, more mobile and generally faster then a
bomber. Finding a bomber and recognizing it was hard enough in WW2 how
successful were fighters in finding and identifying interceptors at
night?


By the end of the war they were extremely succesful.One tactic
widely used was for the intruders to fly around the NF base.

As the airctaft came in to land or took off the Mosquito
would swoop in for the kill. By the winter of 1944/45 there
were mor intruders flying than German night fighters and
they were considerably faster. By the time you loaded
down an Me-110 or JU-88 with its heavy guns, radar
and antennae it was rather slow and didnt handle at all
well.

Keith

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
The USA had zero combat experiencewith the B-17 in 1941 and
sold the B-17 on the basis of the self defending bomber. It failed
in 1941 and again when the USAAF tried it in 1943.

Yeah. Well we expect our political leaders to keep us out of war
[excepting
the present blithering idiot in the White House] . But you're implying
that
the US should have been bailing you out a long time before 1941, I am
thinking.


Nope I'm simply pointing out that by 1941 the RAF had 2 years
of experience in air warfare and the US had none.

The Americans were ultimately able to make daylight precision bombing pay
off,
although not the way they intended, that is true.


Indeed.

Keith

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
The Brits ignored American advice on how to use the B-17. Admittedly,
the
B-17C was not ready for the big leagues.

Could that be why they ignored the advice?

Perhaps.

I'll suggest that there was -no way- given the British experience in WWI
that
they were going to the heavy daylight bomber route in WWI. And I don't
blame
them a bit for that.


You are as usual wrong


I think after all that 'Henry V'/'over the top' stuff in WWI, the Brits
were
bound and determined to try a litte brain power the second time through.
B-17's were not going to help them that much in that particular endeavor.


The British bad experience with daylight bombing was a result
of trying it in 1940 and taking 80% losses against the Luftwaffe.

Keith

"WalterM140" wrote in message
...
You are incorrect.

The RAF operated B-17's in action in daylight long before the
USA even entered the war. The results were heavy losses and
poor results.

The Brits didn't use enough B-17's ever, to say they had heavy losses.
And the
Brits flew them at very high altitudes, and often as single attackers.


The B-17 wasnt available in numbers in 1941. By September less than
40 B-17C's had been produced and half of these were in service
with the RAF as the Fortress I. Mass production of the aircraft began with
the B-17E in late 1941.

That single aircraft ended up over targets was a result of
the extremely poor reliability of the aircraft, it was not
uncommon for half the dispatched aircraft to have to
return to base. Indeed the USAAC described the B-17C
as being unsuitable for combat use.

Except for elite units, British bombing accuracy throughout the war was
poor.


Yadda Yadda Yadda

Keith

Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:


The P-38 was the least effective of the USAAF fighters over Germany,
thanks to a combination of factors. Once the USAAF could deploy
escorts in numbers to the required targets then yes the Luftwaffe day
fighter force was in trouble. The engineering to provide the escorts
in numbers took most of 1943. Then the long range escorts appeared.


I would like to point out that the "least effective fighter" may
not be taking an overall view. Most of the problems with P-38
operations were the result of early doctrine and poor training
of aircrew in multi-engine operations. They suffered through
comparatively high loss rates in early operations where their
writ was not to pursue the enemy, but to provide close escort,
much as the Luftwaffe fighter force was in the Battle of Britain.
Being unable to pursue an enemy limits your kill potential, but
they DID cause a significant drop in bomber losses.

In 1945, P-38s which were still flying escort missions under
the later doctrine (and in equal or superior numbers to the
defenders) had about the same results as their
brethren in -47s and -51s. The P-38 also proved highly successful
with 9AF on low level interdiction sorties. Adding in its ability
to be adapted to do almost anything (how many P-51s were ever
fitted with a Norden bombsight or pathfinder blind bombing radar
system?) and the P-38 was highly successful in Europe. It's
reputation suffered from engine problems (which were absolutely
unknown in the MTO, PTO, or even Alaskan theaters, and were
quite possibly due to fuel problems which admittedly affected
the turbosupercharged Allisons more than the Merlins) and
from the inevitable process of being the aircraft tasked with
proving that your current doctrine isn't working the way it
should.

A poster noted that the use of P-38s in the photo-recon
role (F-4 and F-5) limited the number of armed fighter types
available, but strategically a squadron of long range high
speed photographers (particularly in the Pacific) was almost
certainly more valuable than another squadron of fighters -
unless they are your escort for the day, of course.


Mike
a (perhaps overly enthusiastic) fan of the P-38 and most things
Lockheed
55th Electronic Combat Group
EC-130H Compass Call*; "In Jam, No One Can Hear You Scream"

bendel boy wrote:


Going from memory, Galland said the reverse - that the P-38 was seen
as easy meat, and that it reinforced the lessons of the Bf 110.

Even with drop tanks it didn't have the eventual range of the P-51,
and, as found in the Pacific war area, it didn't have the agility to
dogfight - it had to rely on 'dive & climb' tactics. Against the Bf
109 that may not have been as profitable.


The P-38 was the first long range fighter the US produced, and had
comparable or longer range than the P-51 throughout the entire war.
As a quick exercise, look up the first Allied fighter escort mission
to appear over Berlin... Also look up the airfield locations, and
you'll note that a -38 had to fly quite a bit farther to fly
a round trip to Berlin than a -51 did.

As far as "dogfighting," no allied aircraft had the agility to
"dogfight" (in this case, engage in a fight in which turning ability
is a primary factor in performance) consistently with early war
Japanese aircraft, nor did they need to. As early as December of
1941, AVG P-40s in China successfully employed climb and dive
tactics, in an aircraft which markedly inferior to the P-38 in
that regard. The first British Spitfires to attempt to engage
in a WWI-style turning fight with the Japanese discovered that
their aircraft didn't come out well in such a contest, and also
adopted tactics which suited their aircraft better. Note that
the aircraft with the better performance (climb and speed) can
dictate the type of fight- the slower climbing "dogfighter"
gets to be on the receiving end of high speed diving passes...

Mike Williamson

All the B-26 units in Italy were eventually phased out, as they had been in
the
Pacific, so that eventually B-26s only operated in the ETO.

I know one US MTO B-26 Group was briefly converted to B-25s before relocating
to
the states for transition to the A-26 and the PTO, but I thought the
other 2? (3?)
remained in the theater.

You're correct. I was thinking only of operations in Italy.
The 319th was the group that converted to B-25s before transitioning to A-26s.
It left Italy at the beginning of 1945. After that there were only three
medium groups in Italy, the 310th, 321st and 340th, all flying B-25s.





Chris Mark

ubject: Night bombers interception....
From: "Keith Willshaw"

hat single aircraft ended up over targets was a result of
the extremely poor reliability of the aircraft, it was not
uncommon for half the dispatched aircraft to have to
return to base. Indeed the USAAC described the B-17C
as being unsuitable for combat use.


Why do you think we gave them to the Brits? Same reason we gave P-39's to the
Russians.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

I think we need to be careful getting too detailed with loss rates as
indicating anything significant about aircraft types because there are so many
unknown variables, everything from accuracy of squadron records to how many dud
rounds an anti-aircraft battery fired on one day compared to another.
The safe conclusions are merely that low-level missions will cause losses to
soar, whatever the aircraft type, and that single-engine performance is
important in reducing losses. Both the B-25 and B-26 were good airplanes with
slightly different attributes.


Chris Mark

erroneous, that the choice of the stream
stragegy
was not the best decision at times when a loose gaggle and varying run-in
headings and altitudes between the 2-4 airgraft groupings would have been
more effective.

The goal of the stream tactic was to overload the German
night defences. These were not very efficient, for initially
the German ground control needed two radars to bring about
an interception (one to track the fighter, one to track the bomber)
and by concentrating the bombers in a dense stream, the number
of bombers that could be intercepted by a system of limited
capacity fell. Later on, German tactics were much looser and
more effective, but the concentration of the stream probably
helped to concentrate the ECM efforts that had to be applied to
keep the German controllers in the desired state of confusion.

--
Emmanuel Gustin
Emmanuel dot Gustin @t skynet dot be
Flying Guns Books and Site: http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/



In my flying days the tactic was to vary the run-in headings for exactly the
same reason, to keep the gunners guessing in where to aim. Forces the gunners
to go to more barrage firing. Radar aimed guns were another mater but not that
difficult to defeat with jamming systems. The danger of a midair is always
present with that tactic but in practice wasn't an issue. Only problem was
rejoining after coming off the target.